My organization is seeking to replace all "manpower" terminology with gender neutral terms. There are some instances where the conventional abbreviation "EQM", which stands for "Equivalent Manpower" is used. Is there a commonly accepted substitute for this abbreviation which is gender neutral?

NOTE: This is not a question seeking general answers for terms, and it is thus not a purely opinion based question. This is a question of standards and conventions. If I asked if there is a conventional term in physics for "influence which tends to change the motion of an object" that is not an EL&U question. EL&U could have many answers for a word which means "influence which tends to change the motion of an object", but in physics there is one standard: "Force".

FTE is used only really in summation (like you say EQM is), so it seems identical to me (and very common in my experience as well). "My department has 15 FTEs, with a total headcount of 20. 10 of my developers are half time and ten are full time."
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JoeSep 3 '14 at 21:01

1

FTE is, in my experience, very widely used in professions like teaching and nursing in the USA. It seems a fine choice.
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user987654Sep 3 '14 at 21:50

Well, let's leave aside for the moment that "Manpower" IS gender-neutral ("Man" meaning Mankind, and not males. Woman is actually a subset/specialization of Man, if you want to break the language down to brass tacks).